The Hunting Party

A novelette. First in a series of novelettes and novels: Tales from the Middle Empires.

On a world where blood feuds and interplanetary game hunts are rites of passage, the ruler's younger son joins his elder brother and a band of usurpers on a hunt. But Osbane soon learns that their ship has been around the galaxy a few times and has ideas of its own about what makes for sport. Set upon a world with a strangely sparse ecosystem, Osbane finds that life there revolves around on a fragrant fruit that beckons the hunters and the gamebeasts equally. Warned by the ship to avoid eating it, Osbane travels to the dark heart of the ship's memory banks to discover the horrors that await those who submit to their desire.